Soft factors impeding the adoption of process models

Software engineering is largely a human-based activity despite all computer support. Humans, however have their individual motives, fears and imponderabilities. Process models and their necessary support of a software engineering environment have a high pervasiveness and impact on the software development process and the people working with it. For this reason individuals feel more strongly about any technology change in this area. Human factors gain a strong influence and often impede the successful introduction of such a technology. In this paper we take a human centered perspective and describe, from the viewpoint of an individual developer soft factors hindering successful adoption of process models. We classify these soft factors according to the relation a developer has with respect to his/her social environment.